A Leap Of Faith
by InvaderQix
Summary: Faith Grayson is like any other ugly. She can't wait to turn pretty and be the center of attention at bashes, and start her new life. On the second to last night before her surgery, she follows a group of uglies to the Rusty Ruins, merely curious as to what they were doing. Everything goes downhill from there.
1. The Fall

_The wild was ruthless. Anything could kill someone. Animals, accidents, natural disasters, starvation._

_I was different._

_I was the predator. Handling predatory animals was child's play. I could easily outrun a rock slide or flash flood, find or build my own shelter against the elements, my stomach could digest almost anything._

_I was built to live in the wild. _

_I was wild. No one could tame me._

Faith yawned and stretched. Two more days and she could leave this bogus dorm forever. She looked out her window, across the river and smiled. Soon, she'd be one of them, pretty and ready to party.

She turned back to her wallscreen and observed her face. There was nothing remotely special about her. She had flat blonde hair, small brown eyes, a wide nose and thin lips. She was nothing more than a plain Jane, and that's what everyone called her.

It was better than most Ugly nicknames, but she hated being plain. She wanted everyone to stare at her in awe and kiss her feet. She wanted boys to fall for her. She wanted girls to admire her. She wanted to throw parties and drink champagne and to play around with the giant hole in the wall.

She sighed and gathered her dorm uniform, popping a toothpaste pill in her mouth while slipping into the plaid uniform skirt. Just two more days of this.

Faith Grayson would no longer be a plain Jane ugly.

She barely paid attention to her classes, cleaned autonomously and skipped her meals. As soon as she returned to her room, she went to sleep.

Later that night, she stuffed a winter jacket under her sheets and switched the heat setting on it to body temperature. She smoothed out the sheets and peeled off her jacket and skirt, pulling on her black tights and slipping a cap over her hair. She needed to leave little tracks. She had to see this group of uglies and she couldn't get her hair or clothing caught on anything.

Besides that, she was scared of what the wardens would do if they caught her. She pressed the smart matter mask to her face, then looked in the mirror. It was the face of a Rusty fashion doll. It was creepy.

She grabbed her hoverboard, and slowly opened her window, gently pushing the hoverboard outside of it and climbing out. She cautiously looked around her, then took off, crouching low and riding slow.

After a few minutes, she saw the ugly girl with three long brown pigtails in a group of other uglies. Faith knew the girl to be named Shay. She crept close, still riding crouched and slow. She was hiding from the uglies as well as the wardens.

"I can't believe David is gonna take us to the Smoke! I'm so excited!" she heard Shay squeal happily.

"Yeah, Skinny. We know. We're all excited."

"I know I talk about it a lot, Stretch. I mean, this is the first time we've seen something real, something outside of the city's control. The surgery isn't real."

Of course the surgery was real. How else would there be pretties running around New Pretty Town?

Faith urged her board forward as the uglies began to pick up speed. Soon, they reached the real Rusty Ruins, the place few uglies actually knew about. Faith had never really been a tricky ugly, she didn't see the point of being a constant trouble maker. All it did was make you alienated from the other uglies, who wouldn't want to be friends with you when you became pretty. Tricky uglies caused too much trouble.

Faith made it a point to not make friends as an ugly, so she wouldn't have to dread someone else's surge date. It was hard enough dreading her own. She knew a lot of uglies, but she refused any offers of friendship. She was going to wait till New Pretty Town, when people could see her new beautiful face.

She closed her eyes and pictured her favorite morphos she'd made just the night before. Curly strawberry blonde hair, big blue-green eyes and full lips, like every other pretty. It was the first time she'd ever made a morphos she truly liked.

She was still smiling about it when she smacked right into a tree branch. It knocked the wind out of her, and before she knew it, she was falling.

_I coughed and leaned against a tree. I was getting weaker, and I was sore all over. I was starving, and I couldn't even find any lousy fruit trees. I had eaten my last protein bars days ago. There was no sign of civilization anywhere._

_I couldn't turn back. They would not take me again._

When Faith woke up, her arm was in an extreme amount of pain, and she was strapped down to hard plastic. Razor-laced voices filled the air around her, and she couldn't speak.

She grimaced, and could feel the smart plastic still on her face. She sighed and coughed, still struggling for air.

"Faith?" one of the razor voices shouted. She tried to focus on it, to keep from passing out again.

"Faith Grayson? That's your name?" the razor voice shouted again. Faith struggled to respond, her arms hurt too much to try to make a thumbs up, so she tried to move her head. She managed a slight nod.

"Identity confirmed. Returning to hospital now." That was the last thing she heard before she passed out once again.

_The pain takes over me, and I know I am no longer on this plane of existence._

Faith opened her eyes and squinted. Harsh light filled her vision, adding to the already extreme amount of pain she was in. Her arm throbbed, and she felt something hard around it. Her legs felt weak, her chest still heavy as she breathed through the plastic oxygen mask strapped to her face. Gone was the smart plastic fashion doll mask.

Her door opened, and she heard several heel clicks coming in her direction, each one sounding like a gunshot to her now sensitive ears. She smelled a harsh soap-ish smell, and her nose tingled. She held back her sneeze, as her visitor began to speak.

"Hello, Faith. I am Dr. Cable, and this is Special Circumstances."


	2. The Rise

_I used to call them cruel beauties. _

Faith groaned and struggled to sit up. Her whole body felt like it was on fire, and she slumped back down defeatedly.

"Faith, do you remember what happened to you last night?" the woman asked, her razor voice sending a shiver down Faith's spine.

"Nng…I was…following this group of uglies to the ruins. I just wanted to see what they were doing. Then I-"

"Do you remember who was in that group?"

Faith stirred lightly. "Sh-Shay….some boy she called 'Stretch'. Four others."

Dr. Cable nodded, smiling softly, as softly as a Special could. "Yes, those tricky little uglies. It seems they've acquired outside friends. Dangerous friends."

"Why does everything hurt?" Faith whined.

Dr. Cable pressed a button on the side of the bed. The bed rose Faith up into a sitting position, and her head lolled over to the side. She almost screamed at the sight of Dr. Cable, a beautiful woman with the face of a she wolf.

"While you were riding after them, you crashed into a tree branch and fell to the forest floor. You must have been quite a distance from them since they didn't turn to help you.

"They don't know me well anyways." Faith turned away from Dr. Cable.

"Well, Faith. I want to make you an offer. Your birthday is tomorrow, and your surgery will take a lot longer with that broken arm."

"_Broken?"_ Faith whipped her head back around and looked down at the cast on her arm.

"You broke it after your fall." Dr. Cable raised up a syringe full of repair nanos.

"We can fully repair your wounds with these nanos. When that's done, you're going to do something for me so you can wake up all perky and pretty tomorrow."

Faith closed her eyes. Right now, she wanted to sleep.

"You're going to take this tracker, and follow those uglies to the ruins again. At the rendezvous point, destroy the tracker. We will be there in only a few minutes."

"And then what? What happens to them? To me?"

Dr. Cable smiled again. "You will become pretty, and they will be sent back to their dorms. Their birthdays aren't for another few months."

"And their so-called "outside" friends?"

"That is for us to know and for you to not worry about." Faith felt a sharp poke on her arm and the world was clouded in darkness.

_Cruel beauties. Protectors. Swift and silent. Amazing._

Faith woke up in her bed, fully dressed and pain free. She sighed when she saw the note and tracking device on her nightstand. The hospital hadn't been a dream after all.

She remembered what Dr. Cable had told her to do. She had to betray the uglies so they could capture their "outside friends".

Faith stretched and groaned. The sun had just begun to set, and she knew Shay and her crew had to be boarding out to the ruins in a few hours. She decided to go early.

_I took a deadly leap of faith._

Faith had never truly _seen _the ruins until now. There were actual skeletons inside of those Rusty land cars, buildings that loomed big and creepy-making. They reminded her of shadowy tree branches that used to give her nightmares as a littlie.

_'__I just need to stay low and out of sight. Would have been nice to have a sneak suit.' _She thought, as she hid herself at the very bottom of one of the old skyscrapers. After she was sure no old parts of the structure could fall on top of her, she leaned back against a giant gray rock, and picked up a much smaller one to smash the tracker with when the time came.

Faith exhaled, and began to watch the skies.

After what she felt was at least three hours, she finally saw the crowd of hoverboards. She was too low to the ground to hear them though. She decided to wait at least another hour before she would set off the tracker. She was sure Dr. Cable wanted all of the uglies to be there, plus the outsider.

'_Only another hour.' _She thought.

Then, she saw the single hoverboard cruising towards the skyscraper. It had to be the outsider.

Faith placed the tracker on a flat piece of ground, then raised the rock up to smash it. She hesitated, wondering if what she was doing was really right. She didn't know those uglies very well, and they'd probably hate her for ruining their fun.

'_Dr. Cable said the outsiders were dangerous. Shay said they were going somewhere called the Smoke. Doesn't sound safe to me.'_

With a small grunt, she brought the rock crashing down on the tracker. She smashed it a few more times to be sure that it was thoroughly totaled.

With her deed done, she rushed away on her board, leaning forward as much she could without falling off. Whatever happened, she no longer wanted to be a part of it.

When she got to the forest, a swarm of Specials flew past her, all smiling cruelly as they closed in on their catch. Faith shuddered, and continued back to her dorm. Tomorrow was going to be a huge day for her. After all, she was turning sixteen.

_We don't want to hurt you, but we will if we have to. That was the mantra._

"Good job, Faith." Dr. Cable greeted her as she climbed back into her bedroom window. Everything had been cleared out of her dorm, her bed stripped of its sheets, closet empty, bathroom squeaky clean.

"Where's all my stuff?" Faith asked quietly.

Dr. Cable smiled widely, revealing every single one of her sharpened teeth. "It's 2:30 AM. June 25th. Happy birthday, Faith."

Faith glanced at her holo-clock, which sure enough, read 2:30 AM. She sighed tiredly and sat next to Dr. Cable on the mattress. "Happy birthday to me."

"A hovercar will arrive for you in twenty minutes. You'll be very pretty, very soon Faith." Dr. Cable stood with her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, and swiftly walked out of the room.

Faith sat on the mattress, deep in thought. She was thinking about what kind of dress she'd make with the hole in the wall. Maybe something with lots of flowers and sparkles.

She sat there, planning pretty outfits until she heard the room ping her.

_"__A hovercar is waiting for you, Faith."_ The room told her. With one last lookaround, she picked up her interface ring and duffel bag, then walked out of her dorm room for the last time.


End file.
